This weekend I took Auggie down to an agility trial. I saw they also had rally, so I went ahead and entered us in both. I would rather do both one weekend than have to travel specifically just for rally, and there’s only a rally trial locally twice a year, so why not?
I blew our Rally Advanced A run on Saturday. I practiced pivots in the hotel room the night before and thought I knew how to signal them, but when I got in the ring the next morning, I decided to tuck my arm in like you do in obedience and forgot that I needed to signal Auggie for the pivot. So he didn’t pivot with me. Also, I forgot when I did the moving call front then forward that even if it’s a moving call front then forward the dog still has to SIT when they front. Durp durp. I was so focused on the moving/forward part I didn’t make him sit. The only thing I can partially blame on Auggie is we had the stand then handler walks around the dog, and when I reached down to give Auggie the signal for stand, he immediately thought I was going to signal “down” and threw himself into a down. I could have backed up and then repeated the sign, but I didn’t think about it, so I just stood him and carried on, which meant I failed the exercise because the dog added an extra “part” into the sign. Oh well. The judge was very nice and gave us a few tips.
We Q’d the next day because I decided to screw having my arm tucked in and handled far differently. He was WAY revved up because we were also doing agility, and the way the timing worked, we basically did agility and then went right over to rally – his brain was definitely not in controlled heeling mode, so it was messy messy messy, but I wanted to at least come home with one Q, so whatever I guess. In November I will probably enter us in the local rally trial (unless it’s the same weekend I’m out of town at agility) where all we do is rally, so hopefully he will be in the right mentality and we can get it done without being so messy. The judge told us afterwards that we did a much better job the second day. I thought it was a better job the first day, LOL, even though it wasn’t a Q. Oh well.

Agility was the most important part of the weekend even though I knew I wasn’t guaranteed any Q’s and sort of doubted if I’d get any. Auggie had a clean jumpers run on Saturday, but didn’t make time because the course was wheeled so tight and he’s not running fast for me right now. He knocked the triple in standard which is my fault. Sunday standard was first and we just barely squeaked by under time, so that’s #2 towards his masters standard title. The mystery is jumpers, where he made time by plenty. We ended up with 7 PACH points. I think the scribe may have recorded our time incorrectly, but I have no way of knowing, because everybody was packing up or had already left so nobody was watching to tell me if he really was running that fast, and of course nobody recorded the run for me so we had no way to look and find out. But the course was a very fun, fast course, so it is possible he really ran it that fast… I just have no idea. But, as we say, the agility gods giveth and they taketh away, so in this case I seem to have gotten a gift.

So Auggie is 2/10 for MXP, 4/10 for MJP, and 1/20 for his PACH. And also he only needs 741 more PACH points. HAHAHAHAHA. Yeah I think we need to just put the PACH dream to bed. We’ll get his masters titles and then run him just for fun. I still fully intend to try and work through his jumping problems and hopefully that will boost his confidence enough that he will start running faster, but who knows what will happen? I suppose if his confidence returns full-force and he starts running courses at trials the way he is capable I might change my mind, but for now, I think it’s just time to put the dream away. The odd thing is, it doesn’t really hurt the way I thought it would. I guess I sort of knew, in the back of my head, that this was coming and have had plenty of time to cope with the reality of it.

Or maybe it just helps that I know there is a puppy baking in the oven, and I may very soon be having a chance to try this all over again. Auggie is a great dog and I love him very much. I’m not going to love him any more or any less if he gets an agility champion title. It’s a little disappointing to not be able to shoot for the moon with him, but I will soon have another one to go after the dream with, so that eases the disappointment. And meanwhile Auggie just gets to be my super special little lovey boy!